The schools spend more
than the city does.
The district's 2026-27 budget is $1,096,541,152 — 1.24 times the city's CY2026 budget of $886.5M. It is voted on by a separate board, raised by a separate tax levy, and does not appear in the municipal budget at all.
Two budgets, two calendars
The city runs on a calendar year, January to December. The district runs a school year, July to June. They are never quite the same period, so the two totals on this page sit side by side for scale rather than being added together.
The headline numbers
Where the money comes from
2026-27 revenue, $1.1B in total.
- Local property tax levy $625.3M 57.0%
- State aid $129M 11.8%
- Fund balance and reserves $111M 10.1%
- State grants and preschool aid $96.7M 8.8%
- Municipal payroll tax $84.3M 7.7%
- Federal aid and grants $40.1M 3.7%
- Other local revenue and transfers $10.2M 0.9%
Where it goes
The district's own top-level rollups.
- School-based budgets $378.1M 34.5%
- District-wide current expense $343.9M 31.4%
- Transfers to charter schools $210.2M 19.2%
- Grants and preschool aid $141.2M 12.9%
- Capital outlay $22.1M 2.0%
- Special schools $1M 0.1%
The levy replaced the state
Equalization aid fell to nothing over six years. Local property owners made up the difference.
A property under a long-term tax exemption pays an annual service charge instead of property tax. That charge is split between the city and the county; the school district is not a party to it, so an abated building contributes to the municipal budget but not to the school levy.
The $84,266,505 payroll tax exists to close part of that gap. Jersey City levies 1% on employers and passes it to the district, where it funds 7.7% of the budget.
Cost per pupil
Total budgetary comparative cost, as the state calculates it.
Against comparable districts
2026-27 cost per pupil.
| Enrollment, 2026-27 | Students |
|---|---|
| Onroll (Full) | 27,670 |
| Onroll (SpEd Full) | 3,937 |
| Sent Contract Presch | 2,040 |
| Sent Oth Dist SpEd | 239 |
| Onroll (Reg Adult HS) | 177 |
| Sent Private School | 98 |
| State Facilities | 23 |
| On roll in district schools | 31,784 |
Figures are from the New Jersey Department of Education's 2026-27 user-friendly budget files for district 17-2390, which are the machine-readable form of the budget the board advertised. The full document is published here.